


Better Dig Two

by miriad



Category: House of Wax (2005)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miriad/pseuds/miriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started out as a joke.  "This is my wife, Carly."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Dig Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pesha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pesha/gifts).



It started as a joke.

"This is my wife, Carly." He'd introduced her around the little town picnic, at first not sure what to say about who they were to each other and then, suddenly, hit with a streak of brilliance that almost left him speechless. But, fortunately for them, he wasn't.

She'd given him this look that would have killed other men, lesser men, but Nick was made of sterner stuff. He'd just smiled at her, winked, and waited.

It would kill her to go along with it, but she'd never contradict him, call him a liar in front of all of these new people, new people they'd have to live with for years. His lie was the kind of lie that, when exposed, got a man a reputation. A reputation of being weird. Weird and watched, for the rest of his days. He knew it and he knew that she knew it. 

So he waited.

"Yes, nice to meet you." She shook hands, smiled, even if her mouth was a bit tight at the edges, the scars around her lips standing out white against her skin.

"How did you two meet?" The Reverend's wife asked them, the first of a flood of "getting to know you questions," and Carly jumped in before Nick even had a chance.

"We've known each other since we were born, or so it seems." 

"Before that," Nick muttered to himself until Carly elbowed him in the side and he grimaced. Those self defense classes were really working for her. He shot her a glance and her face told him everything he needed to know. He had gotten them into this but she was going to make it work. Just like old times. Just like always. 

He grinned back at her and took her arm, working the gathering together. Side by side.

*

The sheets were still pretty new so they were a bit scratchy on his naked skin but he barely noticed at this point, his focus on his tongue, which was currently busy licking the inside of Carly out one hot, wet stroke at a time.

His arms curled under her thighs and back around her hip, hands gripping hard enough to leave marks when he finally let go.

She pressed her cunt against his face, riding his tongue, pressing her clit against his cheek as he turned his face to get better access to her.

"Oh, god, Nick, don't-"

He knew she meant don't stop, mostly because she'd said it earlier. Also, experience. Plus the way her fingers carded through his hair, pulling against the short strands, pulling him in closer, tighter against her. He knew her signals, years of practice at this point, so he just kept keeping on keeping on. She liked it that way.

Pulling back a bit, he slid his tongue up, up, rough and hot against her clit. He licked with just that much more pressure and she bucked up against him. He held her close, his grip around her thighs keeping her right where she was, and Carly pulled on his hair again, a warning that she was close. Close was good, so he pressed on with more force, but not too much, and he could feel the tremors starting, shudders working their way through her as he continued to move his tongue and his lips against her.  
"Holy fuck!" Carly could be a screamer, when she wanted to, when it suited what she needed. She could be quiet too, like that first time, in the hotel, after he'd gotten her back, battered but still Carly. He liked it when she screamed, mostly because it usually meant she was happy. And happy was all he could ask for. 

He smiled against her labia, and gentled his movements as she pressed against him, then pulled back, breathing hard. Nick leaned up on his elbows, now resting on the bed, sheets scratchy underneath him, face wet with her from forehead to chin.

"That work for you, Mrs. Jones?"

Carly squeezed her thighs together, catching him in between them, pressing tight against his neck. She could choke him, he knew, or break his neck with the kind of thighs she had now, after all those hours of martial arts training. She wouldn't, but she could. He kind of dug it, like, a lot.

"Fuck you, Mr. Jones." She sounded fucked out and raw, but happy, as if those things were mutually exclusive.

He took that as an invitation.

*

They moved to Steuben about three years after The Incident. There had been money, a settlement from the state, and both Carly and Nick had trust funds from their grandfather they'd finally been able to tap into. 

Their parents hadn't been thrilled when Carly had decided that school just wasn't for her anymore, although they hadn't been surprised at all when Nick had agreed and offered to follow her wherever, to keep her safe. 

Despite what the state police had said, and what the FBI had told them, Carly knew what she had seen that day, in the ambulance. She'd seen that fucker Lester, had watched him smiling at her with that fucking dog as they'd driven her away to the hospital. She'd seen his smile and she knew, she just KNEW that he was just as guilty as the rest of them.

No one believed her.

Well, no one except Nick.

The problem was that Lester? Didn't seem to exist. He wasn't there when the cops went back to follow up on her claims and there wasn't much evidence to show that he'd ever been there. She'd asked to see the case file, to see the photographs that had been taken when the crime scene guys had arrived, and while she thought she caught sight of his elbow in one shot, and his hat in another, there wasn't anything definitive to prove that she wasn't experiencing PTSD from a horrific experience that she'd only barely survived.

Knowing that he was out there, somewhere, made her paranoid. She looked over her shoulder all the time, jumping at the slightest sound, at the tiniest of movements out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't sit through lectures at school, couldn't study in her apartment or the library, couldn't trust people enough to do any group work and couldn't concentrate enough to do the work by herself. 

Despite going to some of the best psychologists that her parent's money could buy, it didn't get better, and in fact seemed to be getting worse.

"She's need professional help," her father had said, speaking over her head like she was deaf or stupid, her mother's face getting more and more red at the suggestion that Carly needed that kind of care. Carly didn't know what she needed, didn't know what would make it better. 

All she knew was that from the first night after hell broke loose, she'd had Nick. He'd been there for her, taking care of her, loving her, and just touching his hand made her feel better. Letting him love her, letting him fuck her, that was a game changer.

But that wasn't the kind of thing a girl could tell her mother, or her psychologist. The lies she had to tell, the truths she had to hide, it was too hard on her, and she let her grades slip past the point of no return. Her decision not to return to school was less her own and more an inevitability the school was preparing to enforce if she didn’t take care of it herself.

"Fuck'em," Nick had said, arms tight around here, his naked chest against her back, speaking the words into her hair, breath warm against her ear. "They don't deserve you, anyway."

"What am I going to do?"

"Whatever you want, babe."

"What if what I want is you? For good."

"You got me."

"This doesn't weird you out? I mean-"

"If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be." And she knew that it was the truth in a way that she didn't know anything else. He kissed her shoulder them, mouth hot on her bare skin, and she let him distract her from the future with the intensity of the present. She didn't exactly mind.

*

They bought the house in the little town because they had stopped for lunch and then for dinner and then they'd gotten a room in a little bed and breakfast and it was like the place was talking to them. To both of them.

Carly'd loved the feel of the place, the gentle beauty of the trees and the flowers and the lazy river winding its way through town. Nick had felt secure there, felt like there were places where he could watch Carly without getting in her way, where he could protect her without seeming overbearing, without being that guy that people started to question and be concerned about.  
They'd had that before, at the school, and it hadn't done any good for either of them.

No, Steuben was a sweet little town where everything was turning out to be exactly like it seemed, as Nick investigated and pushed, searching for truth and the hidden ugly that could come out and bite them in the ass.

The ghost of Lester haunted them, no matter how nice Steuben was, so it wasn't their immediate first choice, but Carly liked it and she hadn't liked anything for so long that Nick just couldn’t tell her no.

Besides, the nice thing about small towns was that you got to know everyone. You got to the point where you could tell when someone was new to town, when someone was just passing through. That was really the biggest reason for Nick agree to settle there, even if he’d never tell Carly.

They bought the house in both their names, for security, not even thinking. They didn't feel the need to explain anything to anyone. They paid cash for everything, kept to themselves, and didn't make waves. Until Carly decided that she was ready to be a part of the world in a way that she hadn't in years. 

The town paper advertised a Fourth of July picnic to be held that Saturday, all welcome. Nick had rolled his eyes as he adjusted the air conditioner, trying to fight off the oppressive Indiana heat and humidity, but Carly had smiled at him, a spark in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a while.

So, he'd grumbled when she made him carry everything out to the car, when she made him drive, and when she told him that he'd have to be sociable but secretly, he was so fucking happy that she was putting herself out there, he'd have agreed to dance naked in front of the whole fucking town if it had gotten even a fraction of the same result.

And then he'd gone and made them married. He thought it was hilarious. Carly thought it'd get them stoned or run out of town on a rail. 

Nick didn't give a fuck. He was, however, appreciative that he could now hold her hand in public and not feel like he was being judged by all and sundry. 

*

Their mother didn't know, at least not for sure, although Nick was pretty certain she had some idea about the true nature of her children's relationship. Based on her reluctance to stay at their house, or even really visit, Nick was pretty sure that she knew.

What he didn't understand was why she didn't do anything about it.

Their mother was the kind of woman who felt strongly about public opinion, about the way people in town saw her, talked about her, saw her family. Nick loved his sister in a way that would never be accepted in the town he'd grown up in, so his mother's reluctance to even start that conversation had him puzzled.

Until she called, about the meds.

"Has she seen anyone in Steuben? I mean, it's hard to get that kind of medication without a local doctor." Mom had sounded nervous, worried when she asked. Nick had just sighed, not wanting to go over something that he had been sure they'd settled months ago.

"She doesn't want those kinds of drugs, Mom. They mess up her system. She says she can't think straight."

"But she can think straight without them? I thought that was the problem."

"She seems to be doing okay for the moment. I'm keeping an eye on her." He'd stopped speaking and his mother had said nothing, just stayed a soft breath across a cell line. "Mom?"

"I trust you, Nicky. You take care of our girl."

"I will, Mom. I am. What-"

"You father and I worry, you know, we just worry. It was so awful. You just take care of her." And then she'd hung up on him. 

She'd never brought it up again, unless she was talking to Carly, asking how she was, how she felt. Nick took it as permission to keep doing what they had been, but he didn't want to break the illusion by actually mentioning it, to his mother or to Carly. 

It just was.

*

She was riding him hard, sweat dripping between her breasts, her palm braced against the head board, the wood slapping into the wall with each thrust of his cock. She'd come once already and he was hoping for a second, maybe a third time for her before he came himself, when he heard the glass breaking.

She froze above him, eyes wide, holding her breath. 

"Nick-" She gasped out his name, out of fear instead of passion and he decided whoever the fuck was breaking in, he was going to murder them. Slowly.

"I heard it." He could feel her heartbeat through his dick, where they were still joined together, pounding away like she was a terrified rabbit. Everything was amplified, to the point of ridiculousness.

She slid off of him as he sat up, reaching for the bedside table and the handgun he kept in its drawer. His cock was flagging but still half hard, wet with her first orgasm, when he finally noticed that the room was a bit cold. He released the safety on the gun and aimed himself for the bedroom door.

Carly'd pulled on the shirt he'd dropped on the floor earlier, when he'd done his little strip tease for her, wiggling his hips to make his cock dance. Now, though, he didn’t want to take the time to pull on any clothes of his own, not with some asshole breaking in.

Cold, naked, and more angry then scared, he padded across the carpet towards the stairs. He'd tell Carly to stay put but ever since they'd been split up in Ambrose and everything that could go wrong did, she'd been his shadow. It was like when they'd been kids, but he minded less. 

Much, much less.

Only now, he wished she'd find a place to hide and stay there. He said nothing to her, of course. Not because of the criminal breaking in but because once the fucker was taken care of, she'd rip Nick a new one and he had no desire to go through that again. He'd much prefer to finish what he had so kindly started.

He couldn't hear anything else as he descended the stairs, listening for movement, for the asshole who'd decided their place was the best shot for his evening. Nothing but the wind howling through the broken glass of whatever window had been shattered. Carly stopped at the bottom of the stairs, crouching down on the bottom step, hands clutching the banister. 

Nick motioned for her to stay there, to not move, and she nodded at him, curling up as small as she could. He wanted her to go back upstairs but she never would. He just had to work around that.

The security light over the garage was on, shining through the window over the kitchen sink, lighting up the room, casting shadows off of everything. 

Nothing in the kitchen. Nick's palm were damp with sweat so he readjusted his grip and kept walking, bare feet silent on the tile.

The air from the open widow blew across him, reminding him that he was buck fucking naked, his sweat cold and clammy on his skin.

And then he was in the living room, arm raised, ready to fire. They'd get no warning from him, although he'd be sure to tell the nice Sheriff that he had announced himself before shooting. Too bad they weren't in Texas, was all he thought before pushing into the living room, ready to kill the mother fucker who interrupted his evening.

Nothing. Not a single thing, except the giant fucking tree branch sticking through the window, looking for all the world like a giant fist punching through the glass. He padded across the carpet, catching a few shards of glass with his feet but not caring, just needing to confirm that there really wasn't anyone else there, ducking into the dark dining room.

Here he flicked on the lights, not trusting his eyes to see into the shadows. He squinted against the sudden yellow glow but managed to check under the table and both sides of the china hutch.

Nothing.

"Son of a- Carly!" Nick put the gun down to his side, and leaned over, not realizing until just that moment how hard he was breathing, how tense he had let himself get. He could see a small blood trail following him from the living room, his feet stinging now that he let himself notice. 

Fuck.

"Nick? You okay? Nick!" He could hear her thumping towards him, bare feet echoing in the hallway to the kitchen, and he remembered the glass on the floor.

"Don't come through the living room! Glass!"

"Ow, fuck-," he heard her, not listening to him, apparently stepping on glass anyway. And then the lights went on in the living room, the darkness pushed away by 100 watt incandescents.

She hobbled into the dining room, naked as a blue jay, foot bleeding just like his. He caught her eye and just laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed until even he couldn't tell if he was still laughing, or if he was crying.

*

She wanted to open a little coffee shop. There were a few diners in town, but they closed early, and there wasn't really a place for high school kids to study or get a nice espresso in town, so Carly wanted to open her own.

Nick thought it was a stupid idea and in the beginning, he tried to tell her that. He tried to remind her that she didn't exactly like people at the moment, that she didn't like being alone or startled, or surrounded by a lot of people. 

It did not go well.

"Like you know everything about me, Nicholas," she'd screamed into his face. 

"I'm pretty sure that I know enough about you to know that this is a fucking retarded idea-" He'd planned on saying more but her palm across his face stung, his nose taking the brunt of it, a little bit of blood leaking out after she made contact. He was too stunned to keep talking, too surprised that she'd actually gone that far. 

"I can't believe I did that." She looked like he'd hit her, the surprise on her face so strong. He rubbed at his nose, wiping away the blood with his fingers, not sure what he was supposed to do. 

Carly held out her hand, as if to show him the red of her palm, from contact with his cheek. And then her face crumpled and she was crying, and he couldn't be still any longer. 

Wrapping his arms around her, Nick puller her in close to his chest, where she buried her face in his shirt, fingers gripping the thin fabric. He rubbed his stinging cheek against the top of her head, muttering nonsense, just trying to calm her down.

"What am I doing, Nick? How am I ever going to-"

"Shush," he told her, squeezing her a bit harder for a second, trying to be reassuring. "You want a café, we'll get you a café." 

Nick's only job was to keep Carly safe. It'd been that way his whole life. He reminded himself of that as he held her, as she soaked his shirt with tears, and vowed to just shut the fuck up. He was good at it, had made it his profession. He just needed a reminder, every now and then.

*

The shop was tiny, a little place with a few tables and a short counter, just right to take orders and deliver coffee. Carly'd picked soft colors, a nice pink and cream, a little pale blue here and there. It was homey without feeling like she was trying to steal the look of Meg's Diner just down the way. 

Carly'd actually gone to talk to Meg personally, to explain what she was trying to do, to make sure that Meg knew that Carly wasn't trying to step on her toes. Meg wasn't pleased, for sure, but Carly's gesture sure had made a difference 

It might have helped that Nick had stood in the back of the room the whole time the discussion had gone on, looking surly and angry and bored, a deadly combo in young white males, he knew. He looked dangerous, which was pretty accurate, and Meg certainly picked up what Nick was setting down. 

She'd told Carly that she wasn't excited but she wouldn't do anything to prevent the little place from opening and Carly had left happy, a smile on her face. It was cold, mid winter at that point, and Nick could see the scars along Carly's lips, bright white against the pink of her lips and the remaining tan of her face. 

He didn't say anything about it, just stepped closer to her and took her arm, walking her to the car, head on a swivel. Nothing like a reminder of what he'd let happen to her to keep him on his toes about what could happen to her in the future.

*

Mothers with kids liked to come into the shop during the day. Stay-at-home moms, some home schooling, some with kids that were just too little, swinging in after a trip to the library or the grocery store, a little frazzled, looking for a hit of caffeine as their kids either slid into an afternoon grumpy time/nap or hit their second wind.

Nick was torn about that. He wasn't a huge fan of kids, not appreciating the mess, the noise, or the expense. But Carly seemed to love them, having a stash of tiny cookies she'd made to give them for free. They all loved her, the kids, and the moms seemed to think she was pretty great, too. 

Nick just sat at the back table and read his book or his magazine or whatever and watched, watched the look that crossed Carly's face when the kids came in and the sadder look that replaced it when they left. There was something there, something that Carly clearly wanted that Nick was unable to give her and they both knew it. 

That's why she hadn't said anything, hadn't brought it up with him, but he could tell. He wasn't a total idiot. He just didn't know how to fix it.

And then the kid came in.

He was a regular, visited with his mother. His name was Samuel and he was exactly four and a half years old. Nick knew that to be true because Sammy would tell them every time he came in to the shop. Every. Single. Time.

But that particular day, he had something new to tell them.

"My mommy's gonna have another baby!" He announced about .03 seconds after crossing the threshold. His mother, looking contrite and red faced as she followed him in, tried to get Samuel to stop talking. She looked up at Carly with an embarrassed grin, pulling her son back towards her legs.

"Sorry, Carly, he's a bit excited today. Didn't mean to blast anyone out when we came in."

"No problem. That's exciting news. I can see why he's so exuberant!" Carly smiled at mother and son but Nick could see the tightness in her face, in the way that she moved, like she was old and her bones ached. "Decaf, then?"

"Yes, please. Hot chocolate for the little guy." Carly got to work on the drinks and Nick got to work watching her. Which was why he didn't see the kid coming up to him until the kid was already pulling on the sleeve of Nick's sweater.

"You're Carly's, right?" Nick smiled a little at the kid, and nodded. "When are you going to give Carly a baby?"

The kid couldn't have hurt him more if he'd kicked Nick directly in the nut sack.

"We can't," Nick said, his voice caught in his throat, the sounds coming out of him deep and wrecked. He tried not to feel as sad about it as he did but failed. "We just can't. End of story."

"But that's so sad!"

"Yeah," Nick said, catching Carly's eyes with his. "It is."

*

He asked her post-sex, when she was cuddly and warm and loose. He'd curled himself around her, arms and legs folding her into him, their bodies tight and sweaty and comfortable together.

"Do you want a baby?"

"What?" She asked, tensing up a bit but still loose.

"Do you want a baby?"

"We can't-"

"We can't, no. That'd be weird and not safe, yeah, I get it. But we could, you know, go to a clinic or whatever and get a guy out of a catalog." He kissed the back of her neck, trying for comforting but a bit nervous himself.

"You'd want to do that? Seriously?" She turned her head to look at him but couldn't quite meet his eyes from that angle. Nick was kind of glad she couldn't.

"If you want to, I'd do it." He meant it, although he didn't realize how much he meant it until he actually said it out loud. Once he had, it sat heavy on his chest, this chance to make them a family in a new way, a different way than they had been their whole lives. Mommy and daddy, not brother and sister. It was sick, it was weird, but it was what he wanted. 

"Nick, seriously, don't offer something like that-"

"I'm here and I don't expect to be leaving any time soon. I think we both know how this is going to go, how it's not going to go. You want a kid, we're going to have to go out and find a baby daddy if you don't want that kid to have three heads and no fingers."

"That is fucking sick, Nick. Jesus." But she leaned back against him, comfortable and sure in a way that she hadn't been even five minutes before. She was in.

"But true, right? Listen to me. I want you to be happy."

"What if I want your baby, and no one else's?" There was the curve ball, the pitch from her that he hadn't been expecting. 

"I don't know, Carly. I just- I don't know." He kissed her head, pressing his lips against her damp hair and thought about it, about how it could work, about all the ways that it could blow up in their faces.

"If we do this," she started, voice low and steady, her "convincing Nick" voice. "I want it to be us. You and me. All the way."

"I'll see what I can do. What I can find out."

What the fuck, right? In for a penny, in for a pound. Oh, Jesus, what were they doing?

*

It started as a joke. Until it wasn't anymore.


End file.
